.: Dark Chicago :.

Dark Arts Books - News

Following are the most recent news posts about what's been going on at Dark Arts Books! To make sure you get notified as soon as we post new information on new titles, special sales or author events, click the "subscribe" button at the top of the page to access our RSS feed. You can also check the archives for more posts.

John Everson’s four books for Samhain Publishing were reissued by Dark Arts Books in e-book format in January when Samhain ceased business operations. So while the books never completely disappeared, it’s been hard to find paper copies over the past few weeks. But now, at last, we can announce that they’re fully Back In Print! You can see the full wraparound bookcover art on Everson’s blog.

Dark Arts Books has released REDEMPTION, the final book in John Everson’s horror trilogy that began in his Bram Stoker Award-winning first novel, COVENANT. If you like your horror fiction filled with demons and depravity… this is the novel for you! The e-book and trade paperback are both now available on Amazon.

Everson is a MASTER of the hardcore; he’s the rare kind of writer who’s so good you can’t proceed with your day until the book is finished. No matter what you have planned, forget it; you won’t bother until you’ve turned the last page. (I missed a playoff game because of this book!) Everson kicks out the jambs in this gory story of haunted religious missions, mind-boggling sex-rituals, and jaunts into Hell (and let’s not forget the communal demonic toilet!) The Little Mermaid this ain’t. This is balls-to-the-wall, no-f–ing-around hardcore horror that hits the reader with the impact of a bucket of hot blood and innards in the face. Read it!”

Redemption is Everson’s first novel since 2014’s The Family Tree, and picks up immediately after his second novel, 2007’s Sacrifice left off. Covenant, Sacrifice and Redemption are all Kindle Select titles, which means subscribers to the Kindle Unlimited program can read all three books in the trilogy for free as part of their subscription.

Six years ago this month, Roy Robbins, the publisher of Bad Moon Books, reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in designing the cover for fellow Chicago horror writer Brian Pinkerton. I said possibly, let me take a look at the manuscript. And when I read it… wow. I couldn’t wait to do the cover. Rough Cut is seriously one of my favorite horror novels that I’ve read in the past ten years. And it inspired one of the best book cover designs I think I’ve done.

So… a few weeks ago when Bad Moon phased out the last of their original book line… I was super excited when Brian agreed to have Dark Arts Books take on the paperback edition of Rough Cut. (Crossroad Press currently publishes the e-book edition). I’m proud to have had anything to do with this novel… and I’m excited to be able to bring it to more readers.

Here’s the description of the novel:

Horror legend Harry Tuttle is desperate for a hit. Harry’s career has been on a painful slide ever since he directed a couple of box office winners in the 1980s. Enter Marcus Stegman, a young unknown with a horror picture of his own. It’s not only a brilliant debut — it’s the movie Harry always dreamed of making. A rivalry ensues — and it’s about to become bloody. A suspicious film critic, beautiful young starlet, and deranged fan become entangled in the cut-throat competition where hungry hopefuls will go to any means necessary to break into the big-time…and no one is safe.

In January, Dark Arts Books will publish Redemption, the final novel in John Everson‘s demonic trilogy that started with the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel Covenant over a decade ago.

To promote the launch of this climactic new novel, a Kickstarter Campaign is running throughout December.

Please consider supporting the Kickstarter this month to get your name listed in the acknowledgments of the book and an autographed, personalized copy as soon as it’s released! You can even get a complete set of the trilogy in trade paperback. Click the video to learn more or click the Pledge graphic to visit the Kickstarter website:

I was working in Los Angeles today when my wife Geri texted me from Chicago to let me know that amazing author, editor and all-round good soul Bob Weinberg had died. It has weighed heavy on my mind these past few hours as I finished my day working here.

Bob was one of the first and best writers I met on the “Chicago” scene when I first began publishing my own work in the ’90s. He was an inspiration, and I was privileged to design a book of his short fiction (The Occult Detective) for Twilight Tales and later to publish some of his stories here on my own Dark Arts Books press (When The Night Comes Down). Bob was a prolific author, co-founder of Chicago Comic Con, and an editor who compiled dozens of horror anthologies with Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg in the ’80s and ’90s.

I’ve reposted a photo here of Bob and Phyllis from Bob’s 70th birthday party just three weeks ago.

I always wanted to see Bob in person more than I ever got to and some day tour his home “genre museum.” Once when I did a library reading near his house, we had planned to do that… but then health got in the way. He lived just a few miles from where I grew up, and yet, somehow I never saw his fabled collection of books, posters, and horror/sci-fi memorabilia. And now never will.

I was honored to have been able to know him, and sign books near him more than once, including at World Horror Convention 2002 (where the first photo of us hails from – the other is from a panel at World Horror 2001). I will always remember him, and dream of Mars in his honor. When we land a manned mission there, I will speak his name.

John Sumakis’s sister Rita has announced that John, who wrote under the name David Thomas Lord, passed away yesterday afternoon. John was the the vampire novels Bound in Blood and Bound in Flesh, both nominees for the Lambda Award. He was also a huge supporter of Dark Arts Books, and one of our early anthology authors.

I first met him at the World Horror Convention in San Francisco, back in 2006, which is where the very first Dark Arts Books release, Candy in the Dumpster, came out. He was always very supportive of the press and appeared in our 4th release Like A Chinese Tattoo, which went on to be a Bram Stoker Award nominee the year of its release. I didn’t see John in person very often, as he didn’t attend conventions much over the past few years, but he was always a joy to correspond with. The world has lost another light. And the literary world has lost a fine, imaginative author.

Martin Mundt’s The Crawling Abattoir has been hitting the sick spot with horror readers this week. The book picked up two new 5-star reader reviews on Amazon over the last couple days.

One called it “a great collection of short stories! Obscene, funny, smart, gross and hysterical this collection is totally worth the investment!!”

The other called it a “Must Read” and described it as “Perverse, funny, twisted, sick, hilarious. Not many stories use ‘lovesick necrophiliac’ in their dialog. The stories are all great but the last one will leave you Laughing out loud.”

A new review of Martin Mundt’s SYNCHRONIZED SLEEPWALKING over at Confessions of a Book Reviewer gives the new Dark Arts Books fiction collection 5 stars and says:

“It possesses some of the most bizarre stories I have ever read. It possesses probably the best short story I have ever read in ‘The Pale Blue Zenith of the Sky.’ It possesses one of the scariest stories I have ever read in ‘To Continue Forever.’ It possesses probably the funniest trilogy of stories I have read about a super hero chicken, ‘El Pollo.’

What it definitely shows us is the varied and mighty impressive imagination of Martin Mundt. Sometimes horrific, sometimes funny, sometimes beautiful, his writing is just fantastic. His pacing is perfect. His use of language and vocabulary super and so perfectly fitting for each and every story.”

Check out the full review here… and then… follow the links and check out the book. Because… I know… you’re going to love it!!!

Martin Mundt’s The Crawling Abattoir has just hit #1 on the Amazon Kindle Bestseller’s List for Horror Humor!!! And it’s actually in the top 525 sellers on all of Amazon right now!

Dark Arts Books put both The Crawling Abattoir and Mundt’s latest, Synchronized Sleepwalking, on Kindle Countdown Sales for 99 cents this week and thanks to a BookBub email promotion today… Abattoir has hit the top! Check it out here!

Better yet… Download both books from the links below. And tell your friends to download them.

They’re cheap. And FUNNY! And probably the Best Stories You’ve Ever Read!!!

“After I read John Everson’s introduction to this collection, I was almost convinced Martin Mundt might walk on water. After reading Mr. Mundt’s stories, I am convinced of this truth: these stories are change agents. Every blessed one. I am not the reader who began at the beginning and read all the way through. I am different–enlightened, expanded, my imagination stretched to unaccustomed possibilities. In a sense, I’ve undergone a sort of personal apocalypse–and survived.”

The Cat After Dark blog also reviewed the book, and called it “the most unique, most original set of short stories I have ever read! Was that redundant? Let me rephrase that to get my point across. Martin Mundt’s writing is so fresh, it slaps you in the face with each story you read.”